Broken Embraces

For more than twenty years Pedro Almodovar is shooting beautiful, Venusian
movies (in the past with a clearly more Uranian and hysterical tone than today),
which are always an especially sensuous delight due to his obvious enthusiasm
for the striking composition of colours and shapes.

Modern mythology
Three years ago the Spanish director in his very own luscious style modernized
the myth of Demeter and Persephone in a wonderful film (“Volver”)
about mothers and daughters losing and finding each other in the wake of
sexual assaults by men.

His recent work, “Broken Embraces”, seems to have been inspired
by the mythical love triangle between Aphrodite, her unloved husband Hephaestus
and her passionate lover Ares: Years before the time which the film starts
with, a beautiful young woman gave in to the wooing of a rich, old man. She
lived with him, loved him not, eventually cheated on him with a younger man,
whom she fell in love with and thus provoked a desire for revenge in the cheated.

Yet
for one of Almodovars multifaceted and peopled love-stories this is not enough.
Flashbacks and late revelations gradually unravel an intricate web of consequential
affairs, reluctant gratitude, difficult father-son-relations and relationships
overshadowed by long-held secrets.

Melodrama and observanceAll that melodrama, desire and jealousy, all that love and loss and grief
although rich on sentiment never gets staged with corny sentimentality
and never seems shallow in the face of kitsch. The tenderly amused and
observant distance which Almodovar keeps towards his characters – and
which in “Broken Embraces” is emphasized more than ever because
of a multiple film-in-film-plot, adding a Uranian and Neptunian tone to
the movie – regardless of sympathy or identification with them enables
the audience to appreciate even guilt and gratitude, forgiveness and envy
as a comprehensive cost of love and passion.

Yet the most beautiful thing is how, in spite of all the tragedy, lightness
and vitality foster hope. It’s like someone saying “hey, that’s
life – don’t worry, it will always go on”. In that sense “Broken
Embraces” is an encounter between the forces of Taurus and Scorpio.

A director and his characters
Gender relations, obsessions and love-stories have been the main topics of
every Almodovar-movie so far. With regard to one of the two possible horoscopes [1]
for him this not only matches his sun in Libra but also the prominent strong
square aspect between Venus and Mars in the deeply dramatic signs of Scorpio
and Leo. The two planets are furthermore accompanied by Moon in conjunction
with Venus and Pluto standing next to Mars.

In “Broken Embraces” both gender archetypes from this horoscope
are split in two: The main male character Mateo/Harry, who is a strong and
confident man of action, a creative director and a generous and protective
lover, not losing his lust for life even after the tragic loss of his love
and his eye-sight, presents a wonderful embodiment of Mars in Leo. His Plutonian
shadow is the rich and powerful, obsessive and even violent Ernesto, who
is driven by his need for power and control and to whom Lena, the Venus-character
in the film, played by gorgeous Penelope Cruz, is bound by feelings alternating
between self-interest, gratitude and calculation. What brings us to the Scorpio-aspect
of said Venus: She is dazzling, sexy and manipulative, an iron-willed actress,
but also passionate and full of devotion and of course a femme fatale as
dangerous as endangered by her beauty and vulnerability. It is hers to experience
the greatest fear of the Plutonian darkness – which is only too familiar
to her – and finally to fall victim to the unleashed violence and the
schemes of others.

After all the female archetype in this movie as in Almodovars horoscope
also has (at least) two faces: there is still Judit, Mateo’s/Harry’s
agent and caring friend, mothering him just the same as her nearly adult
son and taking care of his daily needs almost as a wife – or mother.
Her possessive love, displaying a passionate and occasionally excessive protection
instinct, her desire to be needed and her manipulative concealment of important
facts make her a very suitable incarnation of a Scorpio-Moon.

Thus “Broken Embraces” not only offers the sensuous as well
as intellectual pleasure of a luxuriously photographed and excellently observed
melodrama, but also a fine example of how a director’s horoscope-constellations
(and that means his internal personas) might be incorporated in his film
characters…

There is different information on Pedro Almodovar’s birth data:
The International Movie Data Base and various other sources state September
the 24th or 25th in 1949 as his date of birth. This is the date that shows
the constellations described in this article and illustrated in “Broken
Embraces”.

Vesna Ivkovic

Vesna
Ivkovic studied literature and linguistics, sociology, philosophy and
history and as well took a profound interest in psychology, mythology
and different belief systems. Along the way she also explored various
paths of body awareness such as the martial arts of Kung Fu, Dance,
Yoga, Qi Gong and several other methods of body work and motion arts.
In 1993 she discovered astrology as an instrument of knowledge and graduated
in 2004 in Markus Jehle's and Petra Niehaus' master class at the Astrology
Center Berlin. You can find out more about the author and her work on
her own website www.astrosemiotics.de

The Cinemascope is meant to give an overview of current movies and their main themes from an astrosemiotical perspective (i.e.: regarding film as semiotic system and translating it into the astrological semiotic system). A well made movie not only has a story and a certain theme, it also provides a special atmosphere, a certain feeling and it draws us into its very own world. This basic quality that is contrived through characters, plot, setting and many other components also translates into one or more astrological principles. Quite simply: a fast-paced action-flick confronts us with plain Aries energy, a horror-movie evokes Scorpio-like abysmal depths and fears etc. We step out of the theatre and – if the film succeeded in sucking us in – find ourselves dwelling on and engaging in that special energetic quality.

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